Personal Essay: Grade 3

Writing Unit 3

Unit Title: Personal Essay / Duration: 3 weeks
Concepts:
  1. Writers analyze mentor texts and generate ideas for writing personal essays.
  2. Writers learn strategies for writing effective personal essays.
  3. Writers learn strategies for revising and editing their personal essays.
  4. Writers publish their personal essays.

Materials to be provided by the teacher:
  1. On-Demand Personal Essay Writing Pre/Post-Assessment
  2. Writer’s notebooks
  3. Writing folders with notebook paper
  4. Paper for final drafts
/ Professional Resources:
  1. Lucy Calkins Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5, Book 3: Breathing Life Into Essays, Lucy Calkins
  2. A Curricular Plan for the Writing Workshop, Grade 3, 2011-2012, Lucy Calkins
  3. Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer’s Notebook, Aimee Buckner

Materials to be produced by the teacher:
  1. Class charts:
Examining the Structure of Essays(Session 1)
Comparing Narratives and Essays(Session 9)
  1. Enlarged copies of the following:
“The Seed,” from Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2(Session 1)
“The Genuine Van Gogh,” from Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2(Session 1)
Possible Essay Ideas – Charts 1, 2, and 3 (Session 2)
Personal Essay Revision/Editing Checklist(Session 11)
  1. Individual copies of the following for each student:
“Growing Up Takes Time” student essay (Session 1)
“Fun with My Grandparents” student essay (Session 1)
Possible Essay Ideas – Charts 1, 2, and 3 stapled together (Session 2)
Student charts to be cut out and affixed to the pages in students’ writer’s notebooks (Sessions 4 – 9)
“Don’t Stay Mad” student essay (Session 6)
Personal Essay Revision/Editing Checklist(Session 11)
Personal Essay Conferring Checklist
Personal Essay Assessment Rubric
  1. Two-column essay charts for each small group (Session 1) for the following:
“The Seed”
“The Genuine Van Gogh”
“Growing Up Takes Time”
“Fun with My Grandparents” / Mentor Texts:
  1. Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2, Jack Canfield, et.al.
  2. Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo
  3. Fireflies, Julie Brinckloe
  4. Shortcut, Donald Crews
  5. Peter’s Chair, Ezra Jack Keats


Please read these notes before beginning this unit as they provide integral information
for completing this unit with success.
Unit Introduction:
In this unit, students are introduced to the personal essay, in which a big idea is supported by evidence in the form of stories from our lives. To prepare for writing a personal essay, students will recall stories from their own lives that they can use as evidence to support various big ideas. Then they will choose one big idea that they care about the most and support it with relevant evidence from their own lives in the form of short stories.
Assessment:
  1. Administer the on-demand assessment prior to beginning this unit and score the students’ writing using the Personal Essay Assessment Rubric at the end of this unit. At the conclusion of the unit, administer the same on-demand assessment and look for improvements in your students’ development as writers.
  2. Use the Personal Essay Conferring Checklistthroughout this unit to informally assess your students.
  3. At the end of the unit, the students will use the Personal Essay Revision/Editing Checklist to self-assess their writing. The teacher can also use this form to assess students’ writing.
Resources and Materials:
  1. Immersion in a genre is important before you begin teaching a unit on writing in the genre. Spend a few days having students read and analyze personal essays. At the end of the unit, you will have students compare the content and structure of personal essays to personal narratives.
  2. Personal essays are based on big ideas that can be found in the world and in stories. If you have been determining and recording big ideas (lessons, themes) from the stories you have been reading all year, you will have a collection to get you started. If not, you might return to some of your favorite short stories and picture books that you have read aloud and begin a list of big ideas that emerge from them. Make sure to demonstrate how to determine big ideas in stories if you have not already done so. If you can state the story line (Somebody wanted…, but…, so…, then…), you can make the leap to the big idea in the story by thinking about how this story line applies to people in real life (In real life…). You might decide to have students work together as partners, and then independently, to read and determine the big ideas in short stories and picture books. Short stories can easily be reproduced for your students when you need multiple copies of a text since they are generally only a couple of pages long.
  3. A list of mentor texts and some big ideas from those stories are included; however, you might prefer to use texts with which you are more familiar and ones already in your classroom library. Substitute any texts for the mentor texts suggested in this unit.
  4. Most of the stories in the Chicken Soup series are examples of personal narratives that connect with a big idea. A few of these stories are actually written in an essay format – starting and ending with a big idea and using a short story as evidence to support the big idea. The Chicken Soup stories will be useful for collecting examples of big ideas.
  5. After reading through the sessions in this unit, you will want to write a personal essay of your own before you begin this unit to use as a mentor text, since published personal essays are far less common than other forms of writing. Be sure to save examples of your students’ personal essays to use as examples in the years to come.
  6. A completed class chart for each of the teaching points in this unit is included following these notes. A cumulative class chart is also included with each session. Additionally, detailed student charts that correspond with many sessions are included in a size appropriate for students to cut out and glue or tape into their reader’s notebooks.
  7. You might also choose to create permanent classroom class charts by adding new strategies as you go. If you use a document camera to share the class charts from this unit, also create classroom class charts so students can refer to them later.
Best Practice:
  1. Spend more than one day per session as needed in your classroom. Remember that all teachers and classes are different, and you will want to make adjustments to the sessions, to the sequence of the sessions, and to the number of days you spend on a session as necessary.
Other:
  1. A special thank you goes out to all authors of professional resources cited in this unit for their insights and ideas.

Overview of Sessions – Teaching and Learning Points Aligned with the Common Core

Concept: Writers generate ideas for writing personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, W.3.1b, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 1: Writers analyze personal essays to determine the big ideasand evidence.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, W.3.1b, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 2: Writers support big ideas with evidence from their own lives.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, SL.3.1

Session 3: Writers support big ideas from stories with evidence from their own lives.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, W.3.1b, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 4: Writers create opinion statements for their own personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.1a, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Concept: Writers learn strategies for effective personal essay writing.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, W.3.1b, W.3.1c, W.3.1d, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 5: Writers organize their ideas using idea/detail charts and parallel structure.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 6: Writers create introductionsfor their personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.1, W.3.1a, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Sessions 7/8: Writers support their point of view with evidence in the form offocused short stories.

CCSS: W.3.1a, W.3.1b, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Session 9: Writers create essay conclusions that connect back to the point of view.

CCSS: W.3.1a, W.3.1c, W.3.1d, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Concept: Writers learn strategies for revising and editing their personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.4, W.3.5, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Sessions 10/11: Writers revise and edittheir personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.5, SL.3.1, SL.3.1a, SL.3.1b, SL.3.1c, SL.3.1d

Concept: Writers publish their personal essays.

CCSS: W.3.4, W.3.5, SL.3.4

Sessions 12/13: Writers celebrate their work with others.

CCSS: W.3.4, W.3.5, SL.3.4

On-Demand Personal Essay Writing Pre/Post-Assessment

Pre-Assessment Instructions:

Students should be at their regular writing seats and will need loose-leaf paper and pencils. They need to be able to add pages if they want. Write the following statement on the board:

“Many people think that if they get in a fight with their friends, it is okay to stay angry with them.”

Tell students:

Read the statement, “Many people think that if they get in a fight with their friends, it is okay to stay angry with them” aloud from the board. Have the students think about whether or not they agree with the statement.

“Today you will write an opinion about this big idea. You will have an hour to write your opinion about this big idea and think of stories from your life that you can use to support your opinion. Use everything you know about good writing.”

Have students begin their opinion writing.

Note:

This on-demand assessment shows what students know about essay writing to write about a given idea. Score these essays using the Personal Essay Assessment Rubric located at the end of this unit. Pay close attention to what your writers can already do and almost do. This information will help you focus on goals for your students. Use the same rubric to score their published essays at the end of this unit to show what they have learned.

Post-Assessment Instructions (optional):

At the conclusion of this unit, administer the same on-demand assessment and look for improvements in your students’ development as writers.

Session 1
Concept / Writers analyze mentor texts and generate ideas for writing personal essays.
Teaching Point / Writers analyze personal essays to determine the big ideasand evidence.
References / Materials
  • Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2
“The Seed”
“The Genuine Van Gogh”
  • Student essay – “Growing Up Takes Time”
  • Student essay – “Fun with My Grandparents”
/
  • Writing folders
  • Class charts:
Examining the Structure of Essays(completed)
Examining the Structure of Essays (blank)
  • Enlarged copies of the following essays:
“The Seed,”from Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2
“The Genuine Van Gogh,”from Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul 2
  • Copies of the following student essays for each student:
“Growing Up Takes Time”
“Fun with My Grandparents”
  • Copies of the two-column essay charts for each group

Note /
  • In this session, students will be reading and discussing personal essays in small groups to immerse them in this new genre.
  • Make group assignments for students (3-4 per group) who will be meeting to analyze mentor personal essays.

Introduction / Writers, today we will begin a new unit of study. We have already written about our lives in personal narratives. Now we will write about our lives in a new way. We are going to learn how to write personal essays. We will begin by analyzing personal essays to determine the big ideas and evidence.
Demonstration /
  • Explain that essays are always organized around abig idea. Authors write opinion pieces related to a big idea supporting their point of view with reasons, orevidence.
  • Explain that today students will study the big ideas and evidence in essays. They will learn more about forming an opinion, or choosing a point of view, in a few days.
  • Explain that there are several different kinds of essays:
Literary essays which are used to presentbig ideas from a piece of literature and support them with evidence from the selection.
Persuasive essays which are used to convince others to do something or think a certain way (a big idea) and support it with evidence from real life.
Personal essays which are used to presentbig ideas in the world and support them with evidence from our lives.
  • Share the personal essay, “The Seed,” and examine the introduction to identify the big idea (Reach to do the impossible). Explain how the body of the essay includes support for this big idea in the form of a short story. The essay ends with a return to the big idea.
  • Refer to the completed Examining the Structure of Essays chart or record the big idea and the evidence on a blank, class-sized copy of Examining the Structure of Essays chart.

Guided Practice /
  • Read aloud the enlarged copy of the essay, “The Genuine Van Gogh.”
  • Have students study the introduction to locate the big idea and notice how the essay ends with a return to the same big idea.
  • Have students share their ideas with their partners.
  • Record the big idea and evidence on the Examining the Structure of Essays chart. Summarize the process with the students.

Follow-Up / Writers, whenever we begin work in a new genre, we will want to study mentor texts to help us understand its structure and content. Today you will be working in groups to explore two other personal essays“Growing Up Takes Time” and “Fun with My Grandparents.” You will be reading them to determine the big ideas and the evidence that supports the big ideas. You will record this information on two-column essay charts.
Independent Practice /
  • Conduct small group conferences. Listen in and help students identify the big ideas and understand how the evidence relates to each big idea.

End-of-Lesson Sharing /
  • Convene students in the meeting area.
  • Bring closure to today’s workshop by having two or three groups of students share the big ideas and evidence from their personal essays and add them to the class chart. Summarize the thinking the students used.

Examining the Structure of Essays
Titles/Big Ideas / Evidence/Reasons
“The Seed”
Reach to do the impossible. / Teresa wanted to grow an orange tree in New York, and she made it happen.
“The Genuine Van Gogh”
People who help others in little ways are heroes. / Austin went out of his way to help return a cat to its owners, and they thought he was a hero.
“Growing Up Takes Time”
Take your time growing up. / A girl remembers a time when she wasn’t as grown up as she thought was.
“Fun with My Grandparents”
Give people a chance. / A boy doesn’t think his grandparents are much fun until they take him to a haunted house.
Examining the Structure of Essays
Titles/Big Ideas / Evidence/Reasons

Growing Up Takes Time

Most kids think that growing up is easy. They want to grow up fast and be big kids because then they can do more things. Most of the time, growing up can feel really good, but it is not as easy as it looks. I think that growing up isoften hard to do.

One time, I really wanted to go on the big roller coaster at the amusement park. When I got there, I found out that I was just barely tall enough to ride it. I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to ride down the steep hill. I climbed in and prepared myself for the fast ride. But it went so fast that I thought I was going to fall out. I screamed and screamed! I just knew thatI was going to throw up. I wanted the ride to be over, but it felt like there was always another hill or curve. When the ride slowed down, my stomach felt sick. I never wanted to go on that ride again! I didn’t feel like such a big kid that day.

I realize that growing up is often hard to do. It takes time to grow up, and it isn’t always easy. Kids shouldn’t try to hurry it along. Growing up can be great, but there are bumps along the way. I still can’t wait until I get there!

Fun with My Grandparents

I used to believe that my first idea about someone was true. I thought it wouldn’t be any fun to spend time with my grandparents because they were so old. They had just moved close to me, and I didn’t really know them. I was sure that they were too old to do things that were fun for kids. But now I realize that you have to give people a chance.

One reason why I changed my mind is that in October my grandparents took me to a haunted house. I really wanted to go, but my parents didn’t have the time. I couldn’t believe it when my grandparents said they would take me. It was so dark, and there were creepy monsters and skeletons and witches everywhere. We heard spooky creaks and screams, too. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t real. Things jumped out from nowhere, and I screamed right out loud! It was scary, but I loved every minute of it! I was happy that my grandparents took me to the haunted house. My grandparents loved it, too! This showed me that I didn’t really know my grandparents until I gave them a chance.